I’m now at hour 13 of Mass Effect 2 and it just threw me a curve ball. My favorite character of the game, a speed talking, nerdy alien named Mordin reveals his love for showtunes:
Gotta love the big awkward pause at the end.
Knuckle Under
While walking along Carlton on my way home I espy a car stopping for a red light across the street. There’s a parking ticket flapping crazily in the wind under his wiper, complimenting the massive dent-gash on the driver side.
I consider that the driver probably doesn’t pay much attention to …much. I start the Speculative Bitter Machine in my head and wonder if the driver’s life is full of mea culpas and “Its not my faults”. I imagine him getting out of a parking ticket in front of a judge by feigning a diabetic faint. Or not paying his taxes. Or kicking a puppy.
I look up from the gash to see who I’m judging: a man with his finger two knuckles deep into his nose. His dark eyes wander from the dash over to where I’m standing. Our eyes lock. His finger exits his nose hole. He wipes his hair with same hand. Our eyes are still locked in this briefest of moments.
I can’t contain my disgust. Coupled with the fact that I’ve pre-judged him as being lazy and ignorant, I feel the need to comment.
I American Slow Clap, also known as The Golf Clap*. That is, to clap slowly, sarcastically, steadily and loudly, while tilting your head in such a manner that says “Really? Honestly? …really?!” SharkBoy and I call it American Slow Clap because we kept on seeing it in movies where Villains do it just after the Hero expositions his plan to overcome said Villain.
The driver sees me. “Fuck off!” he yells out his (partially closed) window at me.
*Edited because Jim M knows much more about shit than I do.
Googling My Past
Last year on this day I Googled “wet cat nuts”. I have no clue why
In my head I can imagine some poor sap pouring over server logs at Google, in a windowless room, lit with flickering florescent lights and a tinny 70s pop radio on in the background, when he comes across that little nugget of info and he pauses. Reflecting on the frailty of life, human existence, reasons for human growth potential and all the suffering in the world and the good that can overcome that (plus wet cat nuts) when suddenly a robot arm with a 100 volt cattle prod comes down from the ceiling and shocks him back to work.
Two years ago I guess I was working on something for some freelance client. I Googled “Three Character Code color HTML” and I’m glad to note I was smrt enough to exclude the superfluous Canadian U. I also looked up the naughty Miley Cirus photoshoot story on TMZ. Again, I have no clue. Only apologies.
Three years ago I apparently didn’t use the internet at all, according to Google. The day before I looked up Spongebob Squarepants on IMDb. I think I was sad. That or I wanted to see who did the voice of Patrick.
Four years ago I looked up Brian Cox on IMDb. I think I was confused to his identity after watching Xmen 2 or something. Can’t recall. Google does though, and will probably tell me just as I die. The lights will fade and consciousness grows fuzzy around my peripheral being when suddenly a window will pop open in my field of view – Google will then tell me why I looked up Brian Cox (“You thought his goatee in X2 was hot!”) and I will fade from existence. I also looked up some Vatican info. Maybe I was thinking of a Dan Brown/Xmen kind of fever dream?
Go Go Gadget Bazooka!
Again, from deviantart, comes another image from my youth that makes me howl with AWESOMENESS!!
Go Go Gadget Extreme!
Via Super Punch, via deviantart
The Cool Before the Storm
Last winter SharkBoy and I bought ourselves lovely man-purses (murses? Mansacks? Over the Shoulder Macho Holders?) in anticipation for our winter vacation. The superficial justification being that some crazy terrorist decided to blow up some planes and the world freaked out and decided that it wasn’t going allow a lot of onboard luggage. So we needed something small for our electronics and maybe a magazine. After a few weeks of looking, we discovered WWII Nazi/Russian messenger bags – At least that’s what the guy in the store told us they were. Loudly he proclaimed that the one SharkBoy chose was German and mine was Russian. While the thought of using a bag that might have carried instructions on the proper way to close off the city of Minsk to stave off the encroaching Nazi hordes excites me, I doubt that it’s really Russian. But I can fantasize.
SharkBoy wrote about our purchases here.
Since buying it, they relaxed the restrictions and we never used them.
I (not so) secretly wanted it for the impending iPad arrival in Canada. It’s the perfect size – well I assumed at the time since no one actually had seen one at that time. It sits by my bed waiting to be shown to the world.
Kann ich jetzt gehen? ist es Zeit, um cool zu sein?
Gizmodo freaked me out yesterday (no not the whole Jason C getting his house ransacked by Apple California Computer Police) by posting the “coolest bag for the iPad“.
You guessed it. We rock. You may touch our sleeves.
As an update too, I am going for my second interview sometime this week. Need to sched. (snicker… “sched”… I need an ascot scarf hipster thing)
Appletizing
This weekend was weird.
Friday I spent all morning cleaning so that I could allow a woman doing research into Men Who Like To Cook into my home. I capitalize that because that’s the best way I can describe her study. At first I thought it was going to be all Gender based questions regarding my views of roles within the home but it turned out to be a lot more curious – the questions she was asking going into hour 2 were a lot more personal than I expected and at one point I had a revelation that I actually derive my pleasure for cooking from when I would come home from school about an hour earlier than my Dad and would start dinner. He would come home and complete the meal. Teamwork! Comfort! Valour! Effort! etc… Afterwards, I made SharkBoy a nice dinner of beef quesadillas.
Saturday we basically played it low key and took turns on the PS3 trying to plough through our games. I’m still on Mass Effect 2 and SharkBoy is eating up Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I’ve never seen him so obsessed with a game – I’ve created a monster. Later we met up with GroveOfBlue and Fortress of Solitude and enjoyed Kick Ass and then the first two episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I wish I could download things from the web again. Dang Rogers and their silly DMA threats.
Sunday was dinner with Dad after a day of naps. Da is officially 78 or something silly. Doesn’t act it, though. Happy B-day Da!
After dinner I high tailed it to the Apple store up at the Yorkdale mall where I sat in on a hiring seminar. A few days ago I applied for a part time job for the summer since I: 1) don’t have any projects or plans for this summer and 2) want more money doing something I like doing – namely telling people what to do with their computers.
When I got there, I was the oldest in the room (of about 40 people). Oddly enough this didn’t intimidate me at all, however the amount of scarves on these twentysomething hipsters in 17C weather was quite disconcerting. Thankfully I was wearing my big nerd eyeglass frames or I’d be seen as the totally non-hipster old guy in the room. I find out later this week if I got an appointment with the “People Leader” and then on to the appropriate store manager for training. Fingers sort of crossed. If I get it, great! If not… meh. Moving on…
Of Cabbages and Kings
I love my slow cooker. I have a fairly hefty sized one that I got in 1997 and it’s been like a good friend – a good friend who spends his entire day cooking for me as I slave away at work. I love coming home to a house that smells like I have an Italian woman chained to a stovetop forced to cook for me like she was a mail-order bride, eager to make me happy so she could kill me with cholesterol.
Last week I was asked to partake in a University of Toronto study of men who cook. The meaning of the study is much more involved (some sort of gender bender study) but I’ll leave it at that. Know that there is a research group at the Uni looking into men who enjoy cooking. I gladly said yes because, hey, look at me sideways on. I love to cook. I’m not incredibly super at it, but I love the planning and the execution and the enjoyment of eating. Obviously.
As part of this study I was asked to keep a diary of my cooking habits and so far, it’s been successful. While planning meals in advance of the week (and to up=play the diary, admittedly) I was digging down into the ice age era of my freezer and I discovered a pack of stewing beef. Perfect. One of my favorite dishes immortalized in this study: “Everything In The Fridge Stew”
Basically you start out with a base:
1/2 cubed beef or pork
1/3 cup flour
2 cups beef or veggie broth
2 medium sized potatoes, quartered
A carrot
2 celery stalks
Sliced onion
At least 1 cup of whatever veggies you have sitting around
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
Dollop of BBQ sauce
Cayenne pepper/dried basil/orageno
Toss the meat into the slow cooker. Add flour, salt and pepper. Stir well until the meat is coated. Add veggies. Add Broth. Add spices. Turn the damn thing on for minimum 6 hours. Go enjoy life.
Anyway. Yesterday morning I got to the part where you throw sit-around veggies in and I found some orange peppers and yellow string beans – nice stew foddder. Then things went south. I found a cabbage SharkBoy likes to get me to boil for a side dish sometimes (boil til soft, drain, add vinegar – yum – cheap ‘slaw!) so I thought I should add some. Chop chop chop, add add add, cook cook cook.
After a long day at work, it warmed my heart to knowing that I would throw open my apartment door and smell a rich beef stew. I love doing that to our neighbours – take that, Mr Noisy at 3am fuckers! That’s right, we’re eating beef! Ha!
I shoved my key into the lock and I yank the apartment door open! I inhale like a post-theatre student in his first Bounce commercial.
ACK!
I forgot that cabbage has a distinctive odour when it is cooked. Especially when left in a warm environment for over 10 hours. I had bothered my neighbours, alright. The food taunting had backfired on us – the apartment smelled like Betty White’s underwear after filming The Proposal.
Seriously it smelled like gym sock, fart and had a delicious aftersmell of cooked beef. I avoided the kitchen and walked into the office to find SharkBoy is on his computer, window open, hand over nose.
“Toronto smells today!” he muffles. He often complains on how Toronto smells when the wind blows off the lake across the sewage treatment plant.
“Uhm. That’s dinner,” I offer.
“WHAT!?”
I cautiously open the lid to the crock pot. The smell. I can only compare it to living with a dormitory of athletic guys during some higher education session. Without the sexy glances in the hallway to the showers. Or like durian left in the sun. I gingerly took a nibble…
…and it wasn’t half bad! In fact it was quite good, once you got past the smell. The cabbage tasted quite good!
Currently every window is open in the house. My interview with the Uni students will be conducted with used Bounce sheets taped to our noses.
Tee Pree View
A quick and dirty preview of my next t-shirt design. Inspired by Tank Girl Comics
Gotta Guess Them All
Deviant Art is a fun place. So much talent.
dusty abell takes pen to paper and brings us a massive banner of (okay… breathe… I can barely contain myself) AWESOME 70s TV sci fi icons (Brits tube included!). Click the image to go there and see if you can guess them all!
Logan's Run?!? AWESOME!!
Let’s Talk About Our Feel-HEADSHOT!
You looked hotter on Facebook.
I’m about 5-6 hours into Mass Effect 2 and I’m 1 part amazed and 1 part bewildered.
If you haven’t heard, ME2 is an “open sandbox” game that runs a lot like one of those “Choose Your Adventure” kind of books – You remember them as a teen: reading along, your character encounters a fork in the plot. Do you… “Go to page 23 if you want your character to pick the glowing fruit of STIs or choose page 45 if you want him to slay the dragon of apathy. Maybe.”
The game is Mass-ive (See? See that?) with controls and modifiers that affect the game outcome, popping out of the ying yang, controlled by multiple button mashing. Literally everything in this game can either be customized or upgraded as you play long ensuring OCD kids will keep their asses on couches during game play. As example you start the game by having your lead character undergo facial reconstruction after a vicious battle, effectively letting you off the hook for trying to remember the exact eyebrow arch you designed for your character in Mass Effect 1 (though it does let you import your construct if you’ve played the previous game). Regardless, things like this make me take notice as to how good the game design is.
Speaking of design, the characters are rendered so sharply your eyes will bleed. I can only describe the prop/alien design as being rather satisfying – when aliens are introduced, something inside me says “Wicked! That’s exactly how I’d render it!” (like I could operate 3D Studio Max…pffft). The look of the game resembles those 70s style impressionist science fiction artists, rendered in three dimensions.
However…
The game play is like watching paint dry after you blasted a wall with the coolest high pressure paint shooter, evar. I’ve never experienced more hurkeyjerky game play flow. One second you’re killing 6 eyed aliens with impunity and then suddenly you’re stopping to chat with survivors, choosing a multitude of story branches through real-time character conversation options. It’s like practicing yoga with a room full of really angry pitbulls effected with narcolepsy.
And what kills me the most while I’m trying to remember how to call up weapons menus (LT+A button, rotate Left stick, Press A to choose, and *PEW PEW*!! Oh CRAP!) is that you’re thrown so many story options at once, trying to remember to complete them all gets me stressed out a bit.
So I’m torn. Much like Borderlands, ME2 looks amazing but the game play has massive valleys of meh so deep it divides my geek-gasm in twain.